


The Stygian Prophecy

by NestPlaster



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Desert, Driving, Flashbacks, M/M, Mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 04:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NestPlaster/pseuds/NestPlaster
Summary: This was going to be bigger than any of them. The real question was, would it be bigger than all of them.





	The Stygian Prophecy

The desert sun beat down heavy as noon approached, and Dominic Toretto frowned slightly as the engine of the charger labored in the heat. It was performing, chewing up miles and spitting them out in a long cloud of dust and sand -- but Dom knew the radiator repair was a hack job, especially by his exacting standards. With an inward shrug he relaxed back into his seat and kept the pedal down. Shit happens on a job, and this had been one hell of a job. The patch would hold, or he'd figure something out.

It's what he did.

The part of his mind that wasn't tightly coupled to the hum of the engine and sway of the suspension drifted back to the job. For lesser stakes they might have pulled out when things went sideways, but too much was on the line this time. He had been nervous about Brian, still relatively new to the family, but the boy had pulled through for the job, and that was good. Good because if he hadn't dealing with everything else that happened would be even more complicated than it was already.

Between the two of them and the tools in the trunk, the repair work had gone well enough. A quick tire swap and a little iron bent back into shape, and a radiator patch job with some scrap metal from the ground and a leather seal that Dom was trying really hard not to think about right now. All over soon enough but by then the party had been in full swing, the desert night singing with the scream of quad and cycle motors that failed to cover the whoops of their enemy. The couriers wouldn't leave until dawn, and Dom knew the party would start to wind down around four in the morning. They would have a window still, if they waited.

Thinking back Dom had to admit to himself that even before those long hours hidden in the culvert, there had been some tension. Ever since that race and the ambush. Something had clicked in that moment. It wasn't the realization that the kid really could drive, although that was part of it. It wasn't the feeling of that wiry body pressed between his own and the frame of a high performing motor vehicle, tense with fear but clearly ready to leap into action when the chaos of the moment faded. It might have been how none of that surprised Dom in the moment. It had all felt less like a revelation, and more like a recognition. A shift of perspective where suddenly a new shape came into focus, even though it had been there all along.

And from that angle everything else followed as naturally as water flowing downhill. There were the awkward looks, the slow realization, and of course one of them had to make a flimsy excuse. In the dark Dom had to imagine Brians piercing blue eyes, but he hadn't had any more trouble recalling them than he was now. The blue eyes, the increasingly tousled hair, that impish smile. Dom shifted slightly as his jeans grew a little tight, and then snapped back into the moment as everything stopped.

His mind set into the problem even as his conscious thought raced to catch up. He should have had plenty of fuel and the engine had cut in an instant, without even a sputter of warning. No telltale cloud of steam, and all of the temperature and pressure gauges looked fine -- although the radio had cut dead and there was no sign of any electrical component working. The charger rolled to a stop gracefully, no grinding noises, nothing chattering or clanging. The only pings were what Dom would expect had he cut the gas himself, as the hot steel reacted to the punishing desert sun. Dom glanced back up quickly, squinting towards the high sun, and saw the shape for the first time. "Well," he said to himself, "that's new."

* * *

Dom slowly opened the door of the charger and stepped out into the shimmer of the desert heat. The shape hovered impractically in the air a couple of feet above the packed gravel of the road, and it hurt his eyes to look too closely beneath it. With the sun behind it was hard to make out the edges but it was definitely black and definitely way bigger than him. The main mass was speckled with spikes and extrusions that could have been knives as easily as guns, or something else entirely -- although they radiated a menace that suggested some kind of mechanical tool of violence. Two fins flared out from each side, too short to be wings but existing in the same conceptual space. Dom moved to rest the flat of his hand on the roof of the charger as he took in the sight, then pulled it back from the scorching heat of the sun baked steel. A glimmer of blue light sparked and grew in the center of the shape.

As Dom watched the light expanded upwards into a rectangle, an unnaturally cool blue radiance. _Never look like you're not in control_ he thought to himself, carefully maintaining a casual posture and watching the shape like a hawk. The blue light settled into a static shape, and a human figure stepped into it, back-lit in silhouette.

"Dominic Toretto, we need to talk" growled a voice from the figure, as a ramp slide down towards the surface of the desert and the figure took a step forward into the harsh light of the sun.

"I suppose we do" answered Dom, stepping out around the door of the charger.


End file.
